Fallout 4 is easily the best game I have played in my past two years of owning an Xbox One, and it will certainly remain one of my favorite games in the years to come. It is a welcome addition to the franchise, and remains true to the series while improving on the previous games in more ways than one. The game is so large, and chock-full of new experiences every time I play: from random sidequests to hidden easter eggs, and everything in between. So large, in fact, that even after a full forty-one hours of playtime, I have still barely scratched the surface of what is possible in the ever expansive post-apocalyptic wasteland known as the Commonwealth.

Fallout 4 takes place in the radiation-heavy ruins of Boston Massachusetts in the year 2277, following the detonation of a nuclear bomb that destroyed the entire city nearly two-hundred years earlier. You, the player, were able to survive this bombing by taking refuge in a futuristic bomb shelter known as a vault, in which you and your family were cryogenically frozen in order to wait out the subsequent nuclear fallout. After you are unfrozen however, a group of strangers enter the vault, killing your wife and stealing your infant son, leaving you alone in the mutant infested ruins of Boston, where you must desperately fight to get him back.

The gameplay is one of my favorite aspects of the game. While the controls are slightly different than your average first-person-shooter, I was able to quickly adjust to them, and they soon became natural, leaving my playing virtually unimpeded.

In addition, many aspects of the game are unique, and make playing it a thoroughly more enjoyable experience. For example, the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System in the game, simply abbreviated as V.A.T.S, allows you to slow down time like Neo in the Matrix, and automatically place your shots before shooting at an enemy.

The game uses a built-in algorithm to generate the likelihood that you will hit a given target, therefore the farther away you are, the less likely you are to hit your target. This system adds both ease and difficulty to the game, because you are never sure when a shot will hit, and when it won’t. It also adds a new level of complexity. Similarly, only being able to carry a certain amount of items at a time, as well as the limited amount of ammo and other supplies, makes you think twice about your choices, and adds even more realism and difficulty to the game.

When talking to other non-playable characters, or NPCs, in the game, the different dialogue options also affect the gameplay, and make every person’s playthrough slightly different and unique. The game’s skill chart also gives you the option to add attribute points to characteristics such as strength, charisma, or endurance. Allowing you to carry more items, intimidate other characters, or sprint for longer periods of time. Finally, you can even build your own settlement to store items and assist settlers, as long as you make sure to protect it from thieving raiders. All of these aspects combine to form a truly unique and enjoyable gaming experience, that will satisfy nearly every kind of player.

The game is not perfect however, and has a fair share of flaws. For a next-generation game, the graphics are subpar, with many characters looking more like detailed, well-drawn cartoons than real people. Additionally, the game is riddled with bugs. Many times while I was playing, the character’s mouths did not sync up properly with their words, or they would be floating or passing through walls as if they were ghosts. These few flaws however, arguably add to the unique quirk of the game, and never seriously detracted from my gaming experience. When you put it into perspective, you sacrifice state-of-the-art graphics for a massive world that takes hundreds of hours to fully explore, and realize that many of the games bugs will eventually be patched out with software updates over time.

Overall, the pros of this game heavily outweigh the cons, and I look forward to logging another forty-one hours into what is now my new favorite game of the year.

by SPENCER SELTZER